


These Endless Good Byes

by olivemartini



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreaves character study, Ben's POV, Klaus centrics, Klaus is a gay disaster, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Whole lot of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 01:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: A misconception about dying:There is no tunnel to push through.  No bright light that you have to blink out of your eyes when you wake up.  No heaven, no hell, no crushing darkness.Not for Ben.





	These Endless Good Byes

A misconception about dying:

There is no tunnel to push through.  No bright light that you have to blink out of your eyes when you wake up.  No heaven, no hell, no crushing darkness.   

Not for Ben.

For him, there was only a moment- a moment where he looks down at the blood that had spilled out his stomach and painted over his hands, and then another moment where he is standing, five feet away from where he had been before, watching Luther scream and hurl the man who shot him straight up into the sky light so the glass rains down all around them, watches Diego cradle his head in his lap, sees Allison fall to her knees and scream her powers out at him, screaming  _I heard a rumor you were okay, I heard a rumor you were okay, Ben, open your eyes, I heard a rumor, Ben._

Only Klaus has broken off.  Only Klaus is staring at the second Ben, this new Ben, the not bleeding Ben, tears slipping down his face.  Only Klaus can see him, and Ben knows what's happened before any of his siblings are ready to admit it.

 

 

There's a full week where Klaus doesn't talk to him.

The others try to make him.

Beg him to say things.  To ask Ben questions.  They're so sure that Ben is there with them that they keep setting his place at the table, go unmake his bed every night and make it every morning, so he can keep with the routine of them.  There are empty spaces when they fight, empty spaces when they train, the holes that Ben used to fill left gaping, just in case he wanted to stand there.  

Ben doesn't get it.

"Why won't you let them talk to me?"  Vanya had broken down at dinner, screaming, and when Klaus had given her some bullshit answer about not being able to talk to Ben, about Ben must have moved on, Vanya had lunged across the table and tried to attack him with a fork, the only break in composure that Ben had ever seen for her.  He's not sure why.  He can't remember having ever been overly kind to her.  He regrets it, now, but he supposes that that's the kind of things you learn to do when you grow older.  He's never going to get the chance, now.  "I'm still here."

"You aren't."  Klaus is smoking.  Ben can tell because when he isn't high, or when he doesn't make enough noise to drown the voices out, then there are always other dead people in the room with them.   "You're dead.  I know it, you know it."

"But it's different.  Because of you, you," Ben walks across the room, picking around the piles of clothing on the floor even though he doesn't have to.  He can't touch anything, anymore.  "You can  _see_ me.  So it's like I'm still with you."

"You're dead.  And you'll always be dead.  They'll grow up, and you won't, and it's not good for them, to think that you're here, real.  Like this is the same thing as living.  And you shouldn't," Klaus scratches at his neck, his collar bones, picks at his arms until the skin starts to peel, and Ben doesn't know how he didn't notice this before, wants to go over and rip his hands away, keep him from hurting himself, but he can't.  "You shouldn't be here."

"Why?"  Ben throws himself onto the bed beside him and Klaus shivers.  He's always been afraid of the dead.  Afraid of his own power.  Ben thinks that's why they were always so close- the others didn't grow up with something inside themselves that disgusted them.  "Don't you like that you don't have to say good bye to me?"

"Of course I do."  Klaus reaches out to touch him, to grab onto his arm or hit his shoulder like he had a million times before, but his hand passes right through him, and for the first time, Ben starts crying.  He hadn't known he could cry.  Klaus watches, helpless, and for the first time, Ben starts to think that it was kinder to the rest of them, to not know that he was here, even if they suspect.  He doesn't belong with them anymore.  The only trouble is, he doesn't belong anywhere else.  "But there's something waiting for you, somewhere.  I don't know what it is.  But it's got to be better than looking at what you used to have, right?  You should go."

"You think I should?"

"We've said good bye," Klaus says, and it's true.  They say good bye every time they go onto one of their missions, every time that one of them gets hurt, every time that Klaus goes to sleep, now, just in case something pulls Ben away in the night.   "We've said good bye a hundred times."

There's a pause where Ben blinks back tears.  He's never liked to cry in front of people, but he does it more than any of his siblings, even the girls.  It drove their father crazy.

"I can't make you leave me.  I don't know how.  And I don't want you too."  Klaus tries to touch him again, and can't, so they settle with sitting with Ben's phantom hand sunk down into Klaus' real one.  "But I think it would be better for you if you did."

 

 

 

The worst thing about being dead: Your family breaks apart.  Your siblings hurt themselves, they hurt each other, and you cannot do anything to stop it, cannot tell them that it all becomes to stupid, when you're standing on this side of the mirror.

Allison leaves first.

Ben had seen it coming.  Watched her draw away from Luther, seen her flipping through the magazines that she talks the cashiers into giving her for free.  Sat in her doorway as she spent hours flipping through pages of movie stars and expensive houses, far away islands and bright blue beaches, sparkling images of the Eiffel tower, and he wants to tell her to stop, that one day, the only place she'll ever want to be is here.

She starts it, the unraveling, or maybe that was Ben, or maybe it started all the way back when five disappeared.

Or maybe it was just happened when kids grow up and learn they aren't as special as they thought.

 

 

 

Klaus is next.

In his defense, he doesn't want to leave, not like everyone else.  He doesn't seem to particularly care where he's at as long as he's high, but Ben has been stuck to him long enough that he knows Klaus prefers being at home over anywhere else.  He likes his bed, and likes it when he can stumble to the kitchen to make himself food, and likes the comfort that there will always be someone to carry him to bed if he passes out in the hallway.  Likes it when his brothers are there to take care of him.  Likes being able to have mom card her hands through his hair the rare moments he tries to go sober and the withdraw symptoms grow to be too much, like being able to talk to Allison when they all pass the phone around, even though he only says nonsense.

He's the first one that their father gives up on.

"You disgust me."  There are pills spilled over the ground and the whole family is watching, watching as Klaus scrambles on his hands and knees and scoops them up, tips them back into his mouth, tucks them back into his pockets with shaking hands, and Ben knows that Klaus hates himself, knows that he is ashamed and humiliated and cannot stand this.  "You're weak.  Pathetic.  Useless. An addict."

No one jumps to his defense.

Ben tries.  Tells him to get up.  To stand.  That their father loves him.  That he was only angry, that nothing he said was true.

"You aren't welcome in this house.  Not anymore."  Klaus is still at his feet.  Ben wants to rip the monocle from their father's face and smash it.  "Get out.  Get out or I'll have Luther throw you out."

Luther would do it.

There is no room for compassion when you are trying to prove yourself to father.

"Dad."  Klaus does not understand.  Vanya is shaking, crying, and Ben can see the way that she is digging her nails into her skin, and he wonders why she never actually says anything, how they managed to make her feel so unwelcome that she feels like she's a shadow in her own home.  "Dad, please."

He reaches out one shaking hand to clutch at his pant leg, and it's like the whole thing goes in slow motion- the way their dad wrenches his leg out of his reach, how Klaus falls, and then their father kicking out at him, like he's a disobeying dog, and Ben moves on the instinct that he hasn't been able to shake, that instinct of living, intending to take the blow himself, but he is only a ghost and his leg passes right through him, sinking into Klaus' stomach.

He can't save any of them.

Not even from themselves.

 

 

They end up on some street corner, huddled underneath the overhang of an apartment building, and Klaus sinks down onto the sidewalk, not caring that he was sitting in the puddle.

He's crying, choking on the blood in his mouth, curling up on himself to keep out the cold.

Ben can't do anything.

"Why are you still here?"  Klaus squints up at him, but his eyes are unfocused.  He's yelling at Ben, because he wants to yell at someone, and he knows Ben will never leave.  "Why won't you go away?"

_Because you're my brother.  Because I love you.  Because I'm trying to take care of you._

Ben sighs, kicks at the dumpster without making contact, and then sinks down beside him, wishing that he could remember what it's like to be cold.  "Unfinished business."

 

 

 

It's painful, watching Klaus.

Painful because Ben is watching his brother hurt himself, in so many ways, over and over and over again, and painful because there is a burning resentment that bubbles up in the back of his throat and settles down in his stomach.  A terrible rage building up in him that Klaus still gets to be alive and chooses to do this, a rage that he cannot tamp down and that Klaus refuses to register.

And why should he?

Ben's dead.

Having his dead sibling follow him around for the rest of his life is probably Klaus' worst nightmare, seeing as how afraid he is of his own power, but Ben doesn't particularly care, so he doesn't leave.

He just watches.

Watches when Klaus pawns off the watch dad gave him for his eleventh birthday for drugs.  Watches when he falls asleep on random sidewalks and stumbles down alleyways to throw up.  Watches him shake and sweat his way through withdraw, watches him clutch onto his ragged coat as a nurse leads him to a new bed in his new halfway home, watches when a group of guys grab him and drag him down the alleyway and leave him for dead because they didn't like a guy wearing make up, watches him go after guys who treat him like he's nothing, a nothing that deserves nothing, watches him take pill after pill after pill.

"I just don't get it.  So you don't like who you are, or what dad made you do."  Klaus is passed out.  He won't hear it.  Ben won't say any of this to his face, not yet, because Klaus won't take his advice and he does not want to hurt his feelings.  When Klaus gets really angry at him, Ben can feel himself flicker and shake.  It's a scary feeling, even though he knows that Klaus won't send him away.  "You're still alive.  Isn't that enough?"

Klaus doesn't answer.

 

 

 

The second worst thing about being dead and tagging along as a phantom in your brother's life is that you have to follow him everywhere.

_Everywhere._

"Well."  They are slipping out of an apartment building, leaving behind Klaus' latest one night stand.  He's very proud of himself, possibly because he stole a large sum of money from the guy's wallet.  "That went well, don't you think?"

Ben makes a noise in the back of his throat and hopes it comes across as scathing.  They had worked out an arrangement for these nights- Ben sits on the other side of the door with his fingers stuffed in his ears and Klaus does whatever the hell he wants, just like always.  

"What?"  Klaus arches an eyebrow at him, and spins around on one foot, swaying dangerously close to falling in the middle of traffic.  "Don't approve?"

"Of sleeping with guys so you can steal their money?"  Ben snorts, and Klaus laughs, drawing a few strange looks from passerby.  "No."

"I was going to steal his money anyways."  Klaus stumbles into a coffee shop, orders a donut and two coffees just so he has something to sit in front of Ben's chair.  Ben hates it when other people take the spots next to Klaus and he has to stand.  "The rest was just an added bonus."

"Still, why don't you like,"

"Settle down with a nice girl?"

Ben ignores him.  "Actually try to find a guy you're interested in.  Who's going to be nice to you.  You do know what nice means, right?"  Ben glares at the chair until Klaus pulls it out for him.  "Guys who treat you right?  Who might see you're special, and be good for you, and not push you away and further into drugs?  And who aren't always an inch away from beating you up?"

Klaus laughs again, louder, wilder.

"Or do you think you deserve it?  That this is the best you can do?"  Ben doesn't want to talk about this.  Doesn't know what he's going to do if this happy image comes together- the only good thing about this version of Klaus is that as long as his brother doesn't ever move on, Ben won't have to either.  But he would leave, if it lets his brother be happy.  "Because it's not.  There's-,"

"Don't tell me there's a guy for everyone, Ben, or I swear to god-," Klaus notices how loud he is and takes a deep breath, and when he talks again, he's much quieter.  "Happy ever after isn't in the cards for someone like me, okay?"  The look in his eyes is kind.  Kind and sorry, like this is one of those times where he is registering how hard it must be for Ben to watch him like this.  Klaus is always nicest when he's walking the line of being sober.  "I got used to it a long time ago.  You should too."

 

 

 

 

The first time Ben gets angry at him -really angry- Klaus is in jail.

There are no drugs there.  No headphones, no bathtubs.  No way for Klaus to drown him out, and something in Ben just- snaps.

Klaus doesn't react.  Ben loses track of what he's saying- something about family, about giving up and drugs and wanting to trade places.

"What do you want me to do?  Go back home?"  Klaus waves a hand in the air.  He won't actually go to jail- the incessant talking to your dead brother gives you a one way ticket towards mental rehabilitation.  They're always nice ones, not state run- an influence of the invisible hand of their father, still looking out for his children, even if Klaus doesn't make the connection.  "I'm not allowed to go home.  You were there."

Ben was there.  Klaus, on the floor, grubbing for his pills.  Their siblings, watching.  Dad, passing down the sentence with Luther acting as his ever loyal executioner.

"I think about it a lot.  And if I could redo it, you know what I'd do?"

Ben sits down beside him.  Klaus always sits on the cell floor instead of the bed.  Says it grosses him out.

"Leave before he could make you?"

"No.  No, I always overstay my welcome.  If I could do it again, I'd tell him,"  Klaus pauses to gag and Ben leaps away, even though nothing could touch him, not even Klaus throwing up all over the police station. "I'd tell him it wasn't my fault, it was his.  That he made me into this."

"Klaus."  Ben was tired.  Tired of listening to this.  Tired of trying to talk him into being sober.  

"He did.  Do you know he used to lock me in mausoleums?  All night long.  Sometimes for days.  And the people,-" When Klaus smiles at him, his head lolls, eyes rolling back in his head, and for one moment Ben panics, thinks that Klaus is going to die right then and there, but then he snaps back to attention.  "The people didn't want me there.  They were so  _angry._ All the did was scream, and he just  _left_ me there.  His son.  In the dark with the dead."

Ben is quiet.  He had known, over the years of observation, that Klaus was afraid of things that didn't make much sense, considering the things they'd done- of the dark and spiders and small spaces.  He thought it was from the drugs.  

Apparently, Klaus was right.

It was their father's fault.

"He chained me in a graveyard once.  Bribed the guards and led me in, strapped me to the biggest grave he could find.  And he left me there."  He wasn't angry about it.  Ben thinks it would be easier if he were.  "It stormed all night.  The headstone across from me toppled over and fell onto my leg.  I broke it in three places.  Remember?"

Ben did remember, remembers Klaus hobbling around the house on crutches and crawling up the stairs, and remembers how every time one of them asked what had happened, he would only wink, say that it was a secret.

"Dad screwed all of us up so bad.  We're not heroes.  We're," His head lolls again.  "We're nothing."

"Not me," Ben says.  "He didn't ruin me."

Klaus opens one eye, and for a second, Ben feels so small, like he was seven again and gave the wrong answer during group study.   "You're dead, Ben."  He closes his eyes again, and Ben knows that he will be going to sleep soon.  Klaus sleeps almost as much as he smokes.  "I can't think of a worse way to ruin someone than that."

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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